Do NOT Trust Clark Howard – Worst Ever… He Works for the Banks and Credit Card Companies

December 14th, 2011 No comments

A few weeks ago I was watching the news and heard Howard Clark start to talk and I could not believe my ears. A few weeks ago this Howard Clark stated consumers should continue using their credit cards. This statement that was made by Howard Clark made me ill to my stomach. So I decided to conduct a little research to learn more about him. Turns out Howard Clark is paid by the top banks, Bank of America, Citi, and JP Morgan Chase to make inaccurate statements to aid the banks in making them look like they are the good people. The problem is, consumers who may be uneducated about the credit industry and how it truly works may have the inclination to believe him.

Today we live in a society that banks already have their hands in everything; including the majority of our government.

Today; Howard Clark decided to talk about debit card scams and what he stated could not be further from the truth. Howard stated that when you go to the store and make a purchase using your debit card that you have a possibility of being scammed by the scanners themselves. He then proceeded to state that to better protect yourself, when you go to the store you should use your credit cards instead. WOW!

Ok – so a few things here to point out. One of which is just oozing with common sense that I will venture to guess Howard does not have. When you go to the store and use a debit card, it works the same as your credit card. If some scanner is going to scam your account they will do it with either. Here is the TRUE difference between your debit card and credit card. If your debit card is somehow scammed, you can call your bank and let them know what happened. The bank will “instantly” take the money that was fraudulently taken out of your checking account and put it back in. Although this may take up to seven days, you WILL get your money back – guaranteed. This is part of the insurance that banks are by law to carry; hence the FDIC. Now, if you decided to use your credit card and it gets scammed (again, there is no way to target only debit cards; if one will get scammed – the other will get scammed) you can call your credit card company to let them know about the fraudulent activity. Here is where the difference comes in. You credit card company will tell you that you need to prove it. You will need to go and file a police report (there is a full day out for you), then you will need to submit a claim to your credit card company and maybe, if they desire, will they conduct an investigation. If they decided (which is highly unlikely) that your account was scammed then within ninety days you may get your money back – or a portion thereof. However; you will still need to pay the interest that was charged on your account for the charges that were not yours. Here is the real clincher – twenty percent. The twenty percent of all claims filed is the percentage that credit card companies decide to give the consumer their money back.

So while howard is on the television giving consumers the worst advise ever; credit card companies are paying him over a million dollars per year to look directly at the screen, facing millions of people and straight out lie to all consumers.

Be careful who you listen too. Before making decisions on potentially fatal information given by someone like howard clark; do some background checks. If these people have ever in the past or now have any type of affiliation with any bank, then get advice elsewhere. It pains me to see how much these awful banks truly have their hands in everything, but when the news hires people hired by the banks; it is like nails on a chalkboard, or worse.

 

Categories: Credit Card Companies, howard clark, In The News Tags:

Occupy Wall Street – Taking a Chisel to the Wall of Financial and Political Corruption

October 7th, 2011 No comments

Some would say seemingly out of nowhere (people in the press at least) this movement has become a national and even international phenomenon overnight. I would venture to say that those people are idiots. Occupy Wall Street did start from a small group, however the tyranny, bad banking policy and regulation, allowing banks to influence and even hold powerful positions inside of our government and allowing financial institutions to bankroll our politicians has obviously now caused enough grief coupled with the current state of our economy for more people to actually care that it’s going on. It has been for well over 40 years.

I would like to point out, first and foremost, “I told you so” America. Several people have tried bringing this to light, including myself, and no one seemed to care when everyone could get credit, and people making minimum wage could qualify for a $1.5M house w/ a 420 credit score and 0 down at 120% LTV. Shame on the banks and shame on us!

Now that that’s out of the way, congratulations! Occupy Wall Street couldn’t have come at a more critical time in our government and economy. Wall Street bankers definitely don’t want this reform, and even mock the protestors on Wall Street. Government doesn’t want this reform because they are bankrolled and paid by and sometimes ARE the same Wall Street bankers that we want to get out of government and dissipate the un-American disadvantage current policy and government places upon 99% of us in this country; not to mention how this impacts economies of scale internationally. This change must happen for the future of our country and our children.

I cannot personally be in New York to be part of the protest going on right now, but this weekend I will be in the Jacksonville, FL area participating in Occupy Jacksonville (news). If you are in that area I strongly urge you to come join in, or in any city where they are having an Occupy your city event, protest or demonstration, volunteer, participate and take responsibility for yours and our country’s future!

Categories: Banking Regulations, Government Regulations, In The News Tags:

Citi VP arrested for Embezzling Funds

June 29th, 2011 No comments

    

    Gary Foster, one of Citi’s executive VP’s was arrested Monday June 27, 2011 for embezzling over $19 million of funds. Foster transferred millions of dollars from varies Citi accounts into his own personal bank accounts in just eight transactions. Authorities said that Foster moved interest based accounts expense accounts and took over $14 million from its debt adjustment accounts to the banks cash accounts. Foster then created “contract” or “deal” numbers he added to the reference line of the wire transfer which made the transaction look legitimate.

    Foster is one of many executive VP’s at Citi who was caught stealing and embezzling money, he just happened to be the first one who was caught. A word to the wise; do not think since Foster is gone that all is well at Citi for it is not. For now, executives may lie low for the time until this scandal is over. However; when this blows past more executives will be waiting to take what is not there’s.

Categories: Banking Regulations, Credit Card Companies, In The News Tags:

The U.S Economy is an Easy Fix – Why Will it Not Happen Anytime Soon?

June 27th, 2011 No comments

 

    As a matter of fact – our economy will only get worse and here is why.

    The Wall Street journal put out one of many articles today, June 27th, 2011 stating how the United States economy is slow to recover based on the fact that people are upside down on their properties; businesses are not investing because consumers are not spending. The unemployment rate is not declining at the rate that it should. The recovery is stagnant because home prices (much of the debt problem) are still falling. Consumers still owe more than their homes are worth. Adding to the dilemma; gas and food prices is still at an all-time high. The Federal Reserve has lowered interest rates to help boost the economy but that has done nothing to help the U.S. economy’s recovery.

The bottom line is that over eighty percent of our economy issues are from the insurance-mortgage backed losses that we suffered in 2007. What Americans continue to hear is “be patient, recovery takes time”. But how long can we be patient while we watch prices for normal day to day living skyrocket? No one can dispute that something needs to be done and quickly. Sadly, there is a very easy fix for our financial problems but banks and politicians will not hear of it. They are not the ones affected by the economic downward spiral

and to fix it means less money in their pocket.

No one can dispute that over eighty percent of our economic downfall is from the mortgage crisis. The sub-prime lending idea was found to not be such a good idea after all. Sub-prime lending means a lot of different things. People maybe not credit qualified which in truth is not such a big deal considering most of the credit reporting agencies report inaccuracies all the time and refuse to fix them. However; qualifying someone for a $2000 per month mortgage when they bring in $1000 a year was not so bright. Insurance companies knew the mortgage collapse would happen; it just happened years quicker than they thought. We are all to blame for this; not just the banks. It would be fair to say that this blame is fifty fifty. Common sense has to set in to consumers taking the loan knowing they cannot afford it. This part of it was our greed. Banks however knew better. Banks had no right approving these loans. But greed got the best of them and it spiraled down; way down. Now we are left with the crap that comes after it, but somehow the banks are left to go free. The fact is banks are no more innocent than Bernie Madoff. The difference is that banks hold more power over politics than we like to believe. Banks are who run our politics which is why the one thing we could do to help our nation recover from this mortgage crisis mess will not be done.

Over eight percent of Americans are upside down with their properties. This is a large force stopping our economy from recovery. This is not just the people who took out a larger mortgage than they could afford – it is everyone. As one house in a neighborhood falls into foreclosure all the other houses depreciate because of it. Of course just not to the extent of what happened in 2007 which was dramatic. This is a small example of how the mortgage crisis affected everyone. But the fix for this is easy and truthfully I cannot repeat this enough because it is so elementary.

Remember banks are a large part of the blame for this collapse. Consumers have thus far been the only ones affected and that have felt the pain of this downfall, but why have the banks felt nothing? The banks have not felt any of the pain that they have caused and this is quite baffling. The banks refuse to do anything to fix what they created in this mess. As a matter of fact somehow they are making even more money. Maybe it is just me but in everything that I have ever studied in economics does this not defy the laws of economics?

If the banks were to take the difference in monies that consumers are upside down in and wipe them clean then within three years our economy would be back to “almost” normal but only as long as the banks stop doing sub-prime lending. However the banks will not wipe the difference clean because this is money they will not get back to buy more expensive homes and cars for themselves. This money is not for bank overhead nor is it money that goes into a fund to help consumers or to make for better banking. No – this is money that pays bank executives personally. Since banks are the main funding of our politics do not think that any government body will do anything to change that. This is why what could be done to fix our economy will not be done and we, the consumers, are left to suffer and pay the consequences of the banks’ actions.

I say the economy will be almost normal because this means Americans still need to stop spending more than they are worth. As long as we continue this unnecessary way of spending and using plastic the way we do then the banks win. There are ways of living that do not consist of plastic. As a matter of fact there are only two things that we should utilize our credit for and that is an auto loan and a mortgage. I say mortgage if you find a home that you want to be locked into for the next twenty to thirty years. Any thoughts of getting a return prior to twenty or thirty years on a mortgage are only a dream as the truth is this is how long it will take to recover from this mortgage crisis. Of course the Fed does not want you to know this because they know that it will strike fear in consumers and cause panic.

Three years is how long it could take to fix this mess banks helped create but the banks will not wipe clean the difference between the property value and balance for one reason only; GREED. People are walking away from their homes because they are upside down and good for them. These people walking away are the smart people. They are the ones to know that there is no such thing as too big to fail. The truth is there really is no such thing. AIG made this up in order to get government money. If every single home buyer that is under in their properties walks away then that would even fix the mortgage crisis faster then what we are doing by using sheer force against the banks to wipe that debt clean. That would not create any bigger of a mess than what happened in 2007 however; it would be the start of a new beginning. As soon as consumers realize they can fight back against banks and we stand together then and only then will make change – a revolution for a new banking era; for consumers. Wow – what a concept – a banking industry actually for consumers. The question is: will American consumers stand strong enough to make the change?

 

    

Categories: Banking Regulations, In The News, Mortgage Crisis Tags:

Merchants are cutting cost on plastic – How will this affect you?

June 21st, 2011 No comments

    Merchants are charged heavy “swipe” fees for every transaction made by consumers by banks. In 2000 banks profited over $24 billion and as of the end of 2010 banks profited over $54 billion for swipe fees only. Although the Dodd-Frank law is supposed to bring some relief July 2011 merchants are still scrambling to save what they can. Merchants are offering discounts to consumers who pay with cash as well as lowered the amount of cash consumers can receive back at the counter. Now merchants are also raising the amount charged when making a purchase. Using your plastic when purchasing a $2.00 item or asking for $40 cash back is becoming obsolete. However

this is only to keep consumer cost lower on the items purchased.

     Swipe fees are cost that merchants have to pay to banks for every item consumer’s purchase with their credit cards. Seven years ago the fees did not kill the merchants financially. However; today banks are trying to get all that they can for luxury cars and homes to put their personal families in. William Sheedy (Visa’s group president) claims they want to work with merchants. However what he does not state is that he is paying millions of dollars to fight the Dodd-Frank law to get more money from merchants. This goes to show how words mean nothing when it comes from mouths of bankers as 100% of what they say are lies. They will say what they want to make it look as though they are not bad people.

    When you go and make a purchase be very careful as to what you are paying. More merchants (and rightfully so) are marking prices higher for purchases paid for by plastic. Obviously you will not see it on the actual price tag you will see it on the receipt as some type of additional fee. Consumers may be paying as much as 2% more on purchases when using plastic. This is an effort to show consumers that there are other means of paying for things that do no consist of stupidity (aka – plastic).

Categories: Credit Card Companies, In The News Tags:

Citi group claims hackers cyber attacked accounts and stole over 200,000 bank card holders in United States. (Reuters June 9, 2011)

June 9th, 2011 No comments

Citi group put out a press release stating that hackers had broken into Citi’s system and stole accounts numbers, contact information and email addresses from Citi’s customers. Citi stated that several thousand of their customers had their accounts hacked into.

This news came just two weeks after Citi did another press release stating that with the Dodd-Frank law capping the fees merchants have to pay back to the banks is not allowing the banks the funds they need to protect consumers.

Senior VP and general counsel for the National Retail Federation stated that the banks argument for needing more swipe fees to protect the system that they are not already protecting is a load of bull.

This cyber-attack was the first ever in history where the hackers did not take personal bank information and social security numbers. Citi group stated that miraculously birth dates, social security numbers and personal bank accounts were not stolen. Citi is refusing to state how the attack happened. This action is coming under scrutiny from Consumer Action Law Center, an advocacy group.

We can assume that banks will continue to claim to have their systems broken into of which some of them may be true. However for the most part we have to think about why all of a sudden now soon after the Dodd-Fran law came into effect and banks’ profits are not as high are they NOW suddenly having their systems hacked into for the reason that banks are claiming they cannot keep their system safe. Common sense has to kick in here and make us wonder either: how safe were we ever or what are the banks doing now to make our accounts more unsafe?

Categories: Credit Card Companies, In The News Tags:

Banks and Merchants still battling over fees

May 18th, 2011 No comments

Banks are still looking for ways to get money from merchants since the Dodd-Frank law has been enacted. Banks claim there profits have dwindled to an extreme low and are trying to find ways to raise the profits they lost.

There is a portion of the Dodd-Frank law which caps the amount of money that banks can charge merchants per swipe. The swipe fees that banks are trying to get from merchants is the dividing force between

banks and merchants and merchants against banks.

The banks are using the Michael’s craft store scam as leverage citing that this is proof that the losses to the banks are not taken into account. (Michael’s database was hacked into and some consumers who used their credit cards at the store had their account numbers stolen). Although fewer than 100 accounts were compromised from the Michael’s scam banks are declaring that the issue with identity theft stems from the merchants. Banks state that consumers are not liable for unauthorized debt transactions i.e. stolen cards so the banks should not be either. As of now these costs are absorbed by the bank. Therefore raising the fees to merchants should be more than fair. However: in the same press release banks are stating they need to charge more to secure the system. Senior VP and general counsel for the National Retail Federation stated that the banks argument for needing more swipe fees to protect the system that they are not already protecting is a load of bull.

“At the end of the day the only ones affected by this are the consumers because the costs roll down” stated Senator Richard Mr. Durbin (D). Wall Street Journal May 18th, 2011

Categories: Banking Regulations, In The News Tags:

TCF SUES THE FEDERAL RESERVE FOR HURTING ITS REVENUE

March 22nd, 2011 No comments

Not that the Dodd-Frank law does consumers any good to begin with, they are facing the first lawsuit for “hurting debit card issuers” revenues. TCF has brought a large lawsuit against the new bill stating that it is unfair to restrict the costs charged to merchants. TCF contends in the lawsuit that the Dodd-Frank regulations unfairly targets financial institutions.

    TCF currently has over $18 billion in assets and 441 branches. U.S. banks currently collect over $20 billion year from the debit card fees and typically charge merchants .75% to 1.25% per transaction. TCF has generated $55.7 million in just debit card revenues this year.

Categories: Banking Regulations, Credit Card Companies, Government Regulations, In The News Tags:

PUSHY DEBT COLLECTORS CONTACT YOUR CREDITORS

March 22nd, 2011 No comments

I would like to bring to light just a bit of the inside world of the debt collection industry and how illegal they are, and to explain just how much they get away with. This is just one example of hundreds of how collection agencies behave illegally. Any collection representative who states that third party collection agencies are good, legal and act within the laws of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act are untruthful is dishonest and guaranteed to either be a collector or at least in the collection industry.

Debt collection is a business industry almost like any other. Of course minus the fact that they are not governed or at least no one government agency upholds the regulations put into place to protect consumers which collection agencies are bound by. Although it is up to each state attorney general to regulate collection agencies, they would much rather get paid off from debt collectors. Collection agencies are always paying off certain states attorney general to prevent them from being fined or have to close their business. Nonetheless – collection agencies have sales people that contact first party creditors to attempt and get them to sell their accounts to that collection agency. This part is not so illegal. However: when debt collection sales people offer incentives to creditors to send their unpaid debt to them – THAT IS ILLEGAL.

But this happens as often as, well I cannot think of anything that happens as much as this.

Your first party creditors are offered anything from money to trips with long paid vacations from collection agencies to sell your accounts. There are laws in place that make these incentives offered to first party company’s illegal for several reasons. The most common reason is that this creates a sell all to any problem. First party creditors will sell one account to several third party collection agencies to get the incentive that was offered to them. This causes the debtor to have to deal with several different collection agencies for the same account. One debt collector contacting you is bad enough but several collection agencies contacting you for the same debt at the same time wreaks havoc on the consumer’s personal life.

The second main reason for the laws put in place making it illegal for collection agencies to offer incentives is because first party creditors have and will sell off debt to a collection agency that is not delinquent for the mere purpose of getting their incentive. Consumers have accounts reported to their consumer credit report as well as being harassed by collectors to pay there account in full that they had already been making the correct monthly payments on. Consumers can almost never get cases such as this straightened out unless they spend thousands of dollars on legal counsel and at that point why not just pay off the account.

For those of you who think third party debt collectors are pushy with only “debtors” they are trying to collect money from – they are just as pushing with your first party creditors they contact to get them to sell your account to them. Even the sales people for collection agencies are absolutely terrible and do whatever they can to get accounts to them; even by offering illegal incentives. Sound familiar; it is Wall Street on a smaller scale.

Categories: Third Party Collection Agencies Tags:

LAWMAKERS IN WORKS OF MAKING A DEBTOR JAIL

March 17th, 2011 No comments

Lawmakers, judges and regulators are now weighing in the collection industry to create laws that consumers who do not pay their debt will be given jail time. As of 2010 over one third of all states are using the court system to put people who owe debt in jail. Since 2010 judges have been pursued to sign off on over 5000 arrest warrants and it will only get worse. Judges have stated that the surge of threatening debtors jail have grown immensely since the mortgage meltdown. Judges have also admitted to throwing debtors in jail without adequate proof that they were even aware of the debt, or have ever been served to have a court date. Piatt County Circuit judge Chris Freese said he wishes he can throw more debtors who do not pay there bills in jail because it is the only remedy to get them to pay. Truthfully this judge needs to be kicked to the curb for being collector friendly because it is awful judges like him that aid in taking away consumer’s rights when debt collectors violate the laws such as the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Mr. Stearns, a 20 years old man said the Hancock County sheriff’s knocked on his door and arrested him in front of his children, stripped searched and sprayed for lice on a debt that he had no idea about for a debt to AIG of all creditors. After going through a terrible and humiliating process these so-called debtors are forced to agree to pay on the alleged debt then set free. Sherriff offices nationwide have stated that they are not able to keep up with the surge of arrest warrants being requested from debt collectors and are taking away from looking for actual criminals (WSJ, Thursday March 17th, 2011; pg. c1).

    There are many problems with this. However the biggest problem is that debt collectors have already behaved illegally and have more often than not attempt to collect the debt that is not legitimate. Other judges have stated that they have to hear cases all the time that are for unpaid debt but they are not familiar with this side of the law at all, most even

have not even heard of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Consumer’s rights every day are being taken away in this rapacious credit industry. This needs to be stopped before someone ends up going to jail because they lost their job. It is sad that this world is coming to people no longer having the choice of paying a debt, mostly of which is wrong to begin with. The choice is being taken away from us to either pay AIG or Bank of America – or feeding our children. At this point one has to wonder, is it really that bad to live on cash? We have done it for hundreds of years. If we need something, save and budget for it. Myself and my family personally do it all the time, we have for years. One of many great benefits is that we save money doing it. Our country has the demeanor of “we need it now” but that is what hurts us. Why do we need to purchase a car that is worth no more than $5,000 to begin with and end up spending over $15,000 because of bank fees, handling fees and interest? Is there really a point to that?

Categories: Banking Regulations, Government Regulations, In The News, Third Party Collection Agencies Tags: